The tremendous costs of alcohol addiction or dependency to both society and individuals are well documented. It is estimated that the annual cost of alcohol abuse to the U.S. economy exceeds the annual Federal deficit.
At the present time, it is known that some male descendants of alcoholics have a greater potential to become alcohol dependent than the public at large. However, there is not at the present time a method available for predicting which individuals have a higher than average potential for developing alcohol dependency. It is quite likely that if individuals knew with reasonable certainty that they might have a higher than average risk to become alcoholics, they would refrain from consuming all forms of alcohol.
In view of the significant and known adverse effects of alcohol dependency on both society and individuals, it would be advantageous to have a method of predicting who might have a higher than average potential for becoming alcohol dependent.